Culture pour tous

SENTIER ART³

A MUSEUM OF LIVING ART IN MIRABEL

From August 1^st to 17th, 2008 Mirabel welcomed the first international edition of Sentier Art³, a cultural event dedicated to sculpture in the Belle-Rivière regional park, a large wooded area surrounded by agricultural lands, which is visited yearly by close to 60,000 people for outdoor and family oriented recreational activities.

Sentier Art³ plans to receive international artists for the creation of collective works in a forest setting with the goal of endowing the Mirablel region with an artistic heritage.

Besides Suzanne Ferland L., artist, coordinator and instigator of the project, the first edition welcomed Ingrid Koivukangas (British Columbia), Steven Siegel (United States) and Nicole Vincent (Québec).

The event is true to its name and ambitious in its scope. It refers to the paths that wind their way through the park, and the term Art3—or art cubed—integrates the notions of volume and art in space. The stated objective is to create three or four site specific works a year over the next ten years, thus enriching the park with a collective and living artistic heritage that will leave its mark on the landscape. Over the years and through the increasing number of sculptural interventions, the audience will witness the gradual transformation of the works.

From the ephemeral to the perennial

In 2007 Suzanne Ferland L. chose the park for the realization of a first project called Semper, a word that means “always” in Latin. The artist dreamed of something perennial: “I wanted to propose permanent works, but nobody wanted to take on the responsibility!” she says in reference to the constraints attached to the upkeep of outdoor sculptures for an indefinite period of time. Between the ephemeral and the permanent work, in the end, the solution was to opt for a work which is transformed in the long term, a characteristic that is rarely proposed with so much aplomb for an artistic event.

The invited artists thus had to propose a work made of natural materials that can last at least 10 years and be subjected to nature’s changing seasons and weather. According to the artists, the first works created in 2008 may very well last far longer than that; perhaps fifty years for Ingrid Koivukangas’ (Canada) work, nearly thirty years for Steven Siegel’s (United States) work. One can also entertain the idea that Sentier Art³ may be an initiative that outlasts the foreseen time...

The Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides is one of Sentier Art³’s most important partners. It acts as the administrator for fundraising efforts and contributes to the projects perennial aspect by accepting to oversee the photographic documentation of the evolving works over the next few years. The first photographs were taken in August 2008 with a first printing reserved for each artist and the other for the Musée. Throughout the years the Musée will continue to photograph both the new and already existing works, and these images will serve to enrich its Art work bank.

A long-term commitment to the community

Suzanne Ferland L. created the project on a voluntary basis. Given her sustained commitment to the region over many years, municipal and cultural organizations did not hesitate to come aboard. The Fonds des Laurentides pour les arts et les lettres made a financial contribution, Mirabel provided access to the park and technical support, and local companies contributed in their way, either through financial aid or by offering materials or services. In 2009, for the next edition Suzanne FerlandL would like to recruit a company among her partners to create a website that could contribute to implant and publicize the event.

Suzanne Ferland L., a sculptor and engraver, is proud to present herself as a “project bearer,” and fully assumes this role. “So few people go out of their way to see exhibitions, that is why it is important as an artist to reach out to the citizen, to go and show what it is we do.”

During the two weeks of Sentier Art³ the site specific work lead to various interpretation and exchange activities with the public, notably on August 5 with a roundtable discussion on the theme of public art in forests, with the artists Steven Siegel and Suzanne Ferland L. and the director of the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, André Marion.

The American Steven Siegel, a well-known figure of land art, worked daily with a volunteer team of three to five people who assisted him in constructing his work which was made up of almost ten tons of recycled paper.

As for Suzanne Ferland L., she worked with third grade students from the St-Augustin school, who each drew a face on a different rock. The artist took these rocks, sculpted the faces drawn by the students and glued them on a beech tree, “a tree that forcefully reacts when it is hurt” as the artist pointed out in these evocative terms. “The growing the tree will incorporate the stone which will then become the heart of the tree.”

For her part, the Vancouverite of Finnish origins Ingrid Koivukangas signaled the park’s animal presence by painting the silhouette of 33 animals on 33 trees with handmade red paint consisting of linseed oil, iron oxide, water and a pigment. Finally Nicole Vincent, the artist from Deux-Montagne, crafted a giant bird nest with large pinewood cores placed in the centre. The nest is woven with interlaced branches from surrounding trees, which anchors it in nature for the upcoming years. The children speak of this work as a “dinosaur nest” and are thus clearing a path of wonderment in Belle-Rivière the forest for many years to come.